This is what I think, I like the mod but way to much time of it is spent just hitting end turn waiting for something to finish, it seems like some things are way to expensive to be built without hurry production, absolutely perfect land with the exact right amount of food and hills, or a near exploitive way to get massive production like unlimited priests or similiar.

On quick speed, a warrior costs about 10 production, a axeman 40, along with the archers and cavalry, a threatre costs 300(!) production which is pretty huge for a early tech, and most buildings need 200 or more production to finish, lighthouses and granary just seem to be not worth building until much later, and the heavy cost of lighthouses discourages water based cities.

With Technology, you have the problem of sitting around doing nothing for pretty large periods of time in the early game, workers being unable to work half of the land without huge research investment, and being crippled if the land isn't *just* right, like being in solid forests compared to somebody with floodplains.

I think it might be a good idea to take alook at these things and see if it could be looked into for better balance and fun.

My suggestion is to make all the basic technology as cheap as vanilla civ, and the basic buildings from those techs not very expensive, would also make getting those free techs from tribal huts less of a -huge- advantage.

Like it should be easy to get the basic techs like agriculture hunting mining fishing calender exploration animal husbandry education, and then after the basics you have a major cost difference for the specialized paths,
might just need a minor rebalance to move some of the stronger stuff off of the cheaper techs.

Last suggestion, perhaps increase settler cost by +5 for every city owned, to prevent massive city spamming.

To end a long post, I hope this sparks alittle discussion, and hope that the suggestions could liven up the early game and add some balance.

The basic buildings are too expensive i agree, the tech is too cheap imo. I never have trouble with research and i usually play on emperor difficulty normal speed. Mostly i give up the game because my economy is so overpowered that i have no challenge at all anymore. The major problem is not the production output, its the food storage. When you can build granary, feeding pit and or ...house early you can grow quicker, which results in higher production. Most likely you build a granary at a time when the settlement is already pretty large and you dove through the slow growth phase.

I basically agree that some buildings are too expensive to buy when you have more pressing concerns, such as defending your cities and expanding via expensive settlers.

My suggestion would be to make a minimod adjusting building/tech costs. Others might like to see and play it. With enough support/evidence I'm sure we can see what balance/tweaks should be incorporated into the core game.

Buildings are way to expensive and most buildings are never worth to build except maybe elder council as philosophical and obelisks in some cities that really need the culture assuming you can't get hold of a religion. As the game is set up right now there is basically only one valid option and that is to build units and go smash face. This is already a powerful strategy from normal civ but in ffh it is basically impossible to play anything close to a builder. The fact that there are no "builder victory conditions" just enforce the fact that this mod is even more about military than the original game... Cultural doesn't count as it is just an AI exploit and not doable against any humans worth anything.
Settlers are already expensive. Making them more expensive is not a good idea... The early game techs are way to expensive compared to the late game techs. It is true that it is insanly easy to out tech the AI on emperor but the AI sucks hardcore so that is never a good argument for anything. The point is that the way the early game tech three is built now a large part of the normally ok starts are unplayable due to the inaccessibility of most early game techs(specifically mining and bronze working are situated really late on the tech three compared to in vanilla).

Alter of Lounotarr is a builder vic, too.

And Tower of Mastery...

I always play builder start. Never have cared for the idea of a warrior rush because of the fact my first city IS working on buildings right out the gate. At best I might build 1 scout, then it is straight into buildings for me. Or setting up 2 warriors to escort my first settler if I am on a high food/low production start area.

I think that as a mod-mod to speed up the initial game, it would be quite popular. I know many people use advanced start to get a bunch of techs that are useful (like making your worker able to do ANYTHING at all). But there are also many of us who thrive on the initial game exploration and enjoy a nice, slow, leisurely pace to starting the game going.

Typically, I don't just sit around clicking the end turn button unless I run into a Hill Giant or Giant Spider with my scout and decide I have explored sufficiently to not bother with a new one. Automated exploration tends to get scouts dead, fast.

Alchemy Lab from Sorcery's build hammer requirements are silly high for what it is.

I've been saying forever that military units vs buildings aren't of fair ratiom encouraging rush play over builder.

The early game is supposed to be about survival. When you look at it in that light it makes sense. You're supposed to be focusing on staying in the game, not building your uber city just yet. It could be that you should up the difficulty if this isn't the case in your games.

I like the seemingly high cost of early techs and buildings. It makes you decide which path to take and stick to it. Just like the opening movie says, the further you go down one, the longer it will be before getting to any others. It gives each of the civs their own flavor, no matter which path you happen to pick.

Pick a research path and stick to it, or you won't get to the very expensive techs first. You don't get to be a jack-of-all techs until late in the game. I like that.

I know that my experience is skewed because of my choice of civilization (Clan for slow research, Khazad for massive production), but in my last two games I have built things so quickly my cities have no choice but to produce unit after unit because all the buildings have been built.

Same here. It'd be nice if the "cities can build gold/culture/science" aspects were a bit earlier, and along the normal tech lines, instead of on an offshoot you might not ever want to develop.

I think there is a problem that the starting positions are made uneven because of high costs. Starting surrounded by woods (unless elven) is a huge disadvantage as it takes ages to get to chop trees down and can be a major detour from your civs "preferred" tech path. I now move my first settler if he is in such a position.

But the early techs all have lots of things they offer. Whilst techs such as calender and ancient chants just give 1 or 2 things, most of the 3rd level techs give a lot of benefits at once. Why not split the benefits of these techs over 2 techs making each one considerably cheaper?

eg Festivals split into a prerequisite tech allowing markets, then a tech allowing carnivals (or vice versa), bronze working split into a tech allowing trees to be chopped, then leading to training yards and bronze weapons etc.

Building times are lengthy in the early game but considering the nature of the gaeme should require lots of early troop building anyway that's not such an issue. Apart from theatres being so much!

The early game is supposed to be about survival. When you look at it in that light it makes sense. You're supposed to be focusing on staying in the game, not building your uber city just yet. It could be that you should up the difficulty if this isn't the case in your games.

I like the seemingly high cost of early techs and buildings. It makes you decide which path to take and stick to it. Just like the opening movie says, the further you go down one, the longer it will be before getting to any others. It gives each of the civs their own flavor, no matter which path you happen to pick.

Pick a research path and stick to it, or you won't get to the very expensive techs first. You don't get to be a jack-of-all techs until late in the game. I like that.

The early game used to be about survival. In earlier versions of FfH, an undead ship could land by your city spaming skelletons, barbarians rushed into your lands, and survival was a key element to the early game.

My experience so far with the latest version is that a lot of the early game survival has been nerfed. Monster lairs do not start producing barbarian units right away, the undead ship is gone, the dragon city mechanic is broken (I am eagerly awaiting its return in 0.31), Orthus is content to wander about the wilderness instead of taking out cities after he is spawned, and barbarian units in general like to squat in cities rather than rampaging through civilized lands.

A lot of the new features added in Shadow are great. I would like to see the early game return to a fight for survival like it used to be. The Age of Ice has just ended and the infant civilizations are fending for themsleves in a dangerous world. Why are they constructing buildings on turn 1 instead of cranking our a few defenders to hold back the evil that lurks in the wilds of FhH???

I would also like to see the struggle return but it is a delicate balance between a fun struggle and a frustrating one.

The early game techs all take 20-30 turns, and unless you get one or two from huts, you're going to be sitting around doing nothing for most of the first 100 turns. Getting your scouts killed to bears, spiders, and giants is inevitable, especially with the 25% defense nerf to forests. Settlers are too expensive: you're usually better off making warriors and taking cities from AI civs and the barbarians (except they like to build cities in stupid places). From turns 200-300, you can clear the majority of the tech tree at 4-5 turns per tech, and even the end game techs only take 10-15 with a good economy.

Settlers in .23 only took 160 production, which was reasonable to me. Is the current cost really justified, especially since Agriculture got weakened?

I also think it'd be nice if all civs started with two techs instead of one (one instead of zero for the clan too). That'd give your first worker something to do if you didn't hit the lottery, but wouldn't speed up rushing down a particular tech branch.

I think there is a problem that the starting positions are made uneven because of high costs. Starting surrounded by woods (unless elven) is a huge disadvantage as it takes ages to get to chop trees down and can be a major detour from your civs "preferred" tech path. I now move my first settler if he is in such a position.

The early game techs all take 20-30 turns, and unless you get one or two from huts, you're going to be sitting around doing nothing for most of the first 100 turns.

That's exactly the problem, it just leads to unfun gameplay where your dead on turn 0 because your land is unuseble, or sets you back by 20-50+ turns, or needing to hope for random huts.

Am not saying the civilizations should be just building a complete set of buildings and ignoring troops but they should be viable to build, but as is, I would much rather have 20-30 warriors or 2 settlers over a threatre early on (which used to be about 33 production, and has the same bonuses as in vanilla civ),

I know that my experience is skewed because of my choice of civilization (Clan for slow research, Khazad for massive production), but in my last two games I have built things so quickly my cities have no choice but to produce unit after unit because all the buildings have been built.

That's alittle part of the problem, the only civilizations that can actually make most of the buildings are ones with insane or near explotive methods of production, like khazads vaults sacrifce the weak mega food/slavery or unlimited altar enhanced priests with +3 production, one of the only real methods to use for most civilizations who can afford it is a civic which let's you buy production spending 100-300 gold for getting a building up.

I never use automated exploration, but it just takes 5 seconds to move your one or two units and go back to waiting 20+ turns for your next worker/settler or tech before doing anything.

I don't think the specialized tech paths should be changed, but the early worker techs which you will need anyway should be at a pace like a normal civilization game, as not to give the person who needs calender wood cutting animal husbandry fishing to work his land a disadvantage compared to the person who needs agriculture and mining.

The one build cost I would change is the first Settler. Thirty to fifty turns seems too long to stifle growth on the first City. I like the idea of the cost depending on the year, era, number of cities or some other sliding scale.

I've modified the Handicaps file to replace the results I really hate to get (maps and healing) with additional technology slots. This compensates some for the slowness of early game techs since I usually manage to get a couple of them at the Tribal Villages.

Maybe there should be more speed options put in, that way people who like it how it is can still play the same but people who want faster early games can get just that.

The early game isn't about survival. The barbs are even stupider than the AI. You can kill them pretty easily most of the time and the AI at the higher levels help alot clearing out lairs and the like. As it is quick feels like playing normal speed in normal civ. I normaly play normal so i am fine with that though.. For those who would want to play actual quick games(like if you want to play mp for example) there is no option. Just too bad that some things are so bugged with game speed(gp generation increase same as on normal speed and neither kuriouates nor elohim worldspell scale with speed(although kuroiates worldspell suck..)). You can't chose any higher level because deity AI still suck despite all their bonuses...

Maybe there could be a check box option in custiom games for "Dangerous World" or something that causes more barbarians to spawn early on, returns the Sailor's Dirge to spawn skeletons at random, and generally makes the early game a little less friendly.

I think a slight reduction in research costs and build costs in the early game is warranted, it would speed us through the boring clicking turn at game's start, and reduce the advantage of having a really great first city start. If you could start accessing resources that require techs a bit earlier, someone not needing to do any work to prosper wouldn't get so far ahead.

It does seem that early game survival has become easier with Shadow. I tend to find i reach a point where I am sitting there with nothing to build with warriors that I don't really need. One of the reasons I love luichurp in the early game is that they can get their worker while still growing. After this stage normally comes a section where there are suddenly a heap of buildings I can build, with insane build times.

I don't know, maybe part of the solution is to bring some builds a tech earlier. If you could just get Elder Council at Ancient Chants science would get going much faster, and Mysticism would stop being so insanely necesary, giving some more scope for different viable tech paths early.

I'm kind of a fan of the high cost of early techs and buildings. Though a few tweaks here and there wouldn't hurt. It makes early game prioritizing very important. For example, it makes the cost of rushing for axemen very high, which is a good thing IMO.

It also makes the philo/financial/agressive traits what they are since they give early building discounts. If you don't have a trait that gives discounts on buildings, I'd suggest getting Education before mysticism or festivals and start up cottages instead.

I think moving around to pick a good spot to settle is pretty important, the first settler has 4 move after all. Settling near sources of commerce that don't need improvements, such as a river, is crucial. If you pick a spot with enough fresh water for farms, a settler only takes 20 turns to build once you're at max pop under agriculture.

I've had the same feeling in my first games with FFH2...

Hard to build and easy to make discoveries...

A bit strange for me as it means you discover new things you can't construct.

First: I usually play at Marathon/Huge or Large/Immortal/Extra AI players, and often one or two human opponents. I'm sure that has a significant impact on how I experience the game's pace. So, with that in mind...

I'm sure improving tweaks are possible, but I'm in favor of generally high costs. I like how the high opportunity costs make the decisions on what techs to research or buildings to build more significant and more difficult to make.

Here's a possible tweak that'd keep the high opportunity cost but lower tech costs overall: Shift more of the costs to the earliest techs (or maybe second techs) down a branch of the tech tree. But make several following techs less expensive... So that the total cost is considerably less overall.

Getting on a branch would be expensive, but once there the next few techs are relatively cheap.

That'd reward specialization. I suspect that'd be good, but I haven't tested it.

*I'm concerned about the effectiveness of building Warriors rather than buildings... but I think thats more of a game-setting or offensive/defensive balance issue than a building/tech cost issue.

*I agree with the comments about starting position... I'm considering plopping my first settler down where it appears rather than finding a really choice spot. I'm abandoning too many games due to being way ahead... due to a great starting position.

Though that seems to have a lot to do with the map script and settings used. Lately I've been using "Fractal" and "Custom_continents". I'm going to go back to using Smart Map (And settings like (less jungle/desert)). With Smart Map the starting positions seemed more even.

Anyway, getting back to the original point, I'd prefer any problems be solved in some way that doesn't eliminate the interesting decisions that presently have to be made between techs and buildings.

*I agree with the comments about starting position... I'm considering plopping my first settler down where it appears rather than finding a really choice spot. I'm abandoning too many games due to being way ahead... due to a great starting position.
I prefer use the editor and boost a bit the opponents in this case... especially now because I still haven't finished any of my FFH2 games. (I want to know what happens when the counter reach 100;) )
Though that seems to have a lot to do with the map script and settings used. Lately I've been using "Fractal" and "Custom_continents". I'm going to go back to using Smart Map (And settings like (less jungle/desert)). With Smart Map the starting positions seemed more even.
I've had a problem with Smartmap...
It created a map with no mana node for me... so i have only used it once... as I wasn't able to find the parameter that was wrong.